Charging by the hour is hard work. And any time you stop work, the income stops too. It’s life on a treadmill.
I think part the reason a lot of professionals instinctively want to charge by the hour is that they don’t want to overcharge anyone. They want to be fair. That’s because professionals are never normally entrepreneurs, they usually do what they do because they genuinely enjoy helping people.
The trouble with this approach is that any work that comes their way is defined as being as valuable as any other, regardless of importance or outcome. So a proportion of their work can end up being inappropriate tasks for inappropriate clients.
When you stop charging by the hour, and start charging based on the value to the client, you have to understand and articulate value to a potential client and pitch a fixed fee. It helps you see the world from their point of view, not yours. It helps you think deeply about what you do and how that helps people most effectively.
It can take a while to make the transition but my goodness when you do it’s a lovely change. My own journey with this has been enlightening and I feel that I am helping clientsbetter than ever, and probably better avoiding working with people that would not have been a good match. A much better way to live.